Recently ximage productions has released a dvd about 7 Dutch housing developments which have adaptebility and participation of the inhabitants as core business. In the last development, GW Nieuwegein I am, being the architect of the original plan, one of the interviewed. For this part of the documentairy see: http://youtu.be/SEnkugDHLoo

Casual contacts make a warm city
Usually we know the people in our street. This can make us feel safe and at home. But in the shopping center of the neighborhood or the city, things are different. We may feel free here, but this is a kind of freedom that comes with a price: with a feeling of uncertainty and a lack of safety.
We feel lost between all the people that we don’t know. We don’t know what to expect from them. But what can we do about it? The scale of the neighborhood or the city is so big, it is impossible to know all the people we meet here.
But there is hope. It appears that we don’t need to know each other in order to feel safe and at home! In his research called ‘The warm city’, Taddeus Müller shows how a city will be experienced as a warm place, where inhabitants feel safe and at home when they can meet each other in a casual way (Müller, 2002). It is enough that people to meet each other, have a few words, exchange an opinion with a stranger, and move on.

Waiting at the bus stop
How can urban designers and architects contribute to these kind of behavior? It’s clear that the built environment can never make people meet! But there may be a way to invite people to share some of their thoughts for a while.
Imagine a bus stop. A few people are waiting and the bus is late. Now someone might make a remark about the bus being late. And others may react. They can agree on the problem, and together they will be happy when the bus finally shows up. Those who get out of the bus first greet the others and little by little the small bus stop group dissolves. But the city is a bit warmer for a while.

The bus stop: a small scale meeting space when the bus is late

Small scale meeting spaces with a view
What we can learn here is that casual contacts can arise, not in a space where hundreds of people are around, but in a small place that contains a few people. This makes it easy to know who to talk to. This solves the problem who to talk to. The other thing we can learn here is the importance of a subject to talk about. A small place with a few people may be not enough when you don’t have a clou what to share. So it is not only a the small scale of the space that is important, you also need a view on something, an event or an object, that is interesting enough to talk about. On something that is happening, or not happening, like the arrival of the bus.
This is how we can understand the success of the small urban spaces that William H. Whyte has described in the seventies. (Whyte 1980) See also the interesting film he made about the subject: http://vimeo.com/6821934

The parade
As an example of a small scale meeting space with a view we can think of places where people come to parade. Here we can see small scale spaces (terraces) along a strip, where we can sit together with unknown others and watch the people who walk by on the strip, dressed or behaving to be looked at. Where sometimes street artists complete the scene. Now we have enough subjects to talk about with our unknown companions on the terrace. Parading also works the other way around. Those who walk by on the strip can look at the terraces at the side and choose a place to sit down for a possible a casual contact.

The Ramblas in Barcelona, the parade and the small meeting spaces at the sides

When we think of a parade, we tend to think of boulevards in big old cities. But we can understand this concept in a broader way. Children in a playground also parade when they want to come into contact with other children. They walk along the different objects, the merry-go-round, the slide, the see-saw, the climbing tree, showing themselves, and looking at the children playing on the different objects. Here the objects are at the same time ‘small scale meeting spaces’ and ‘interesting subjects to talk about’. Here children can have their casual contacts.

Corridors
The parade stands for a more formal way to relate to other people, but contact between people can also take place in a more informal setting, in the ‘corridors’ of a neighborhood or a city. Here we may think of the Greek ‘stoa’s’ that were situated alongside the market place, the agora, of ancient Greek cities. In these ‘corridors’ people could meet in an informal way and comment, from the side-line, on what was going on in the market place. When we think of the stoa in Athens, we can say that the opinion forming that took place a long time ago still influences us now: we all know the stoics from the school of Zeno, in the stoa of Athens, and we still know what it means to be stoical. In this way corridors can still contribute to opinion forming and developing ideas.

View of the Stoa of Attalos from the Hephaisteion, in Athens, built140 bc. The corridor where stoicism was born from regarding the marketplace.

When we think of the cities of today, we don’t see stoa’s in this form, but those who understand the concept will recognize corridors in many different forms. Like a shop where neighbors discuss actions or problems in the neighborhood, or the place in front of the school where parents, waiting for their children, discuss the educational matters. Corridors come in many forms: for another example we can think of squatted buildings where artists and designers have domiciled. Here new opinions are developed and transformed in alternatives that may be interesting for the life of the city and sometimes for the society as a whole.

Squatted buildings in Berlin: a breeding ground for new ideas and developments

All these corridors go hand in hand with small scale meeting spaces. Like the little shop, the waiting area in front of the school, the workshops and studio’s in the squatted buildings.
Also on higher levels we can recognize the concept of corridors. Like motorways. When we think of a road movie we can see how drivers and friends meet hitch hikers and people other people as the move around. Casual contacts that are connected with a small scale meeting place: the car.
Or trains that cross the country. Here we can take a seat in a compartment, together with a few strangers. We don’t have to talk, but the compartment is small, the group is limited and we have a window with a view. So we might try a casual contact that can develop alternative ways of looking at the world and ourselves.

Casual contacts in a small scale meeting place with a view in a moving corridor.Painting by Zoya Samoilenko

‘Communicating doors’
Imagine that cities were organized like trees. Then the streets of neighborhoods would only lead to their own neighborhood center. In such a set up inhabitants would rarely meet outsiders that live in other neighborhoods. As Christopher Alexander pointed out long ago: ‘a city is not a tree’, and we can see that: streets are normally connected with different neighborhoods, they form lateral connections, ‘communicating doors’ that enable us to meet people from outside in our own neighborhood center. Outsiders who can comment on our affairs with no strings attached. And thus open up our perception of life and make it more diverse and interesting. I think we all have had the experience of seeing old things in a new way when we show our city to a visitor from abroad. Often because of remarks from the visitor who has a new way of looking at things. This can be interesting because new points of view may lubricate the friction when the more formal world of the parade and the critical and alternative world of the corridors are confronted with each other.
And again we can use small scale meeting spaces to bring us into contact with such visitors. Here we may learn something from the people in foreign towns who want to be our guide. They know where to expect tourists: near hotels, or in places of interest like a fountains, the entrance of a park, a monuments or a historic plaza’s.

Prosperity by three kinds of casual contacts
We have seen that casual contacts can make the city warm, but there was more to it. We can distinguish three kinds of casual contacts.
1) For the formal contacts we can think of the parade.
2) For the emergence of alternatives we can think of the corridors.
3) For contacts with ousiders who can come up with ideas that can lubricate the interaction between the formal world of the parade and the alternative world of the corridors we can think of interconnecting doors.
All these casual contacts can benefit from small scale meeting spaces, not only in making the city warm but also in making life in the city florish.

Philip Krabbendam

Philip Krabbendam is an architect who is specialised in designing housing collectives. He recently finished his Ph D research on qualities in the built environment that may invite people to relate to the environment and to each other.

Shared domestic facilities is what all types of cohousing ( such as ‘central living’ and ‘group houses’ ) have in common . But how can we put this principle best in practice .
In the first part ‘what we can do together and with how many' I will consider which facilities are appropriate and what is a suitable groupsize that fits the facility. In the second part 'what we can do together and with whom' I'll look at the possibilities of the integration of different lifestyles.In the third part 'what we can do together and how we keep in touch' I will look at how residents can be invited to casual contacts that , projects , and in the immediate neighborhood .

From small to large .
We encounter shared facilities on different scales . On the scale of a small group, as in the case of a group house, on the scale of a larger group, such as an old courtyard , on the scale of a large group such as a street, and on higher levels, such as the neighborhood , the quarter, districts and the city as a whole. Below, I want to show some examples, and connect them...

Hall , cluster and group
An early example of a small-scale shared facility is found in the experimental flats in Utrecht Overvecht (1971). Here every four homes share a common 'hall' . These halls were and still are used as playground for children, for playing games, table tennis, or for a communal meal.

Experimental flats in Overvecht . The common halls are used for different kinds of playing.

In the ‘central living’ (centraal wonen) project in Hilversum (1977), we see 'clusters' of four and five housholds that live in seperate houses, connected with a clusterfacility: a room for cooking and eating. The current housing occupancy hovers around two people so in these clusters you can expect groups of about 8 people , but it can be more: 4 families with 2 children can build up to a group of 16 people!
In the ‘central living’ project in Delft (1981), there are no separate houses, but bigger and smaller quarters, that can be rented in different combinations. Here we see no clusters, but 'groups' where the inhabitants cook, eat and chat. In the 'shared living' (gemeenschappelijk wonen) project in Nieuwegein, we find both forms: groups and clusters.

Courtyard , small project and court
As an examples of a slightly larger scale we see the classic courtyards, where inhabitants share an access (surcharge) and a common garden, originally equipped with a pump, as a facility for 20 to 30 houses.
More recently, we see relatively small projects, some 20 or 30 households, who share a garden and a general meetingroom, whether or not fitted with a workshop and washing machines. One example is a project called 'Zonnespreng' in Driebergen, a project for 20 households that share a general meeting room, a guest room and quite a large and adventurous garden/wood area, where residents can meet each other by the fire or on a pick-nick table, and children can climb trees and play hide and seek.

The 'Zonnespreng' in Driebergen: 20 appartments with a central meeting room under the porch and an adventurous garden and wood area around it.

The 'shared living' (gemeenschappelijk wonen) project in Nieuwegein has more than groups and clusters: the tenants also share facilities at the levelof 30 households: the so called 'courts'. A garden area with for example a playground, a pick-nick table and a fire pit. And a room for bicycle storage.

A ' court ' in 'shared housing' in Nieuwegein

In ‘central living’ in Delft, also a bigger project, we find the same kind of courts, here on average 20 households, with also a workshop, storeroom for bicycles and a laundry.

Street, home zone and project
At a higher level, we can also find shared facilities. For example, in the 'street', where residents share an outdoor area for taking a stroll, for chatting, a barbecue or a party. It is a facility that is put under pressure by the car, that need to be parked here.
In the seventies the 'home zone' was introduced , a street designed in a way that cars knew their place, so that the residents could inhabit the street as they originally did.

The ' Wandelmeent’, the street of ‘central living’ in Hilversum. Behind the spiral stairs we can recornize the general meetingroom, annex bar

Also in the seventies, the first ‘central living’ (centraal wonen) projects arose, housing projects that all had their own outside area, like a street or a square, but here were also indoor facilities, called 'project facilities': such as a bar, also used for general meetings, workshops and rooms for children. Here we are at the level of about 50 households/ 125 people, like the aforementioned projects in Hilversum (lower level: 'cluster') and Delft (lower levels 'groups' and 'courts'). The also mentioned 'shared living' project in Nieuwegein (lower levels: groups, clusters and 'courts') is a project of more than 250 people, with different project facilities.

Facilities for the neighborhood , quarter, district and city
In cities we are used to the level of the neighborhood, with shops, convenience stores and play areas for children. And above this level we see the quarters, districts and the citycentre, all with their own specific facilities.

A series of levels
Sharing facilities can be very practical, but it is also a way to maintain contact with others, who are not part of the household. The importance of this cannot be underestimated, because we are not simply who we are, we are also who we are in relation to others. A household in a flatbuilding finds itself faced with a large-scale environment that discourages contact with others. The gap between the level of the household and the social context of the large scale environment puts the household in a social vacuum. When you embed the same household in a smaller context, the household can be recognized as a part of it. But this in not enough. If there would be only small groups of households, these groups would also be isolated. The problem of isolation would only be shiftedto a higher level. In other words: the small group needs a bigger group in order to position itself in a social context. And also this bigger group needs a next level, etc etc.

When we want to make sure that every social circle has a context, we need a whole series of levels , from bedroom to the city center and beyond. This series usually exists, but there is also a gap in it. Looking upwards from the privacy of the bedroom , we may see the living room as the first higher level, that contains a social level, the family, in which the members of this family can place themselves. But then there is a long interval until the level of the neigbouhood, where the series regains shape.
Housing projects with shared facilities can bridge this gap if they are not too small. A cluster or a group reaches not far enough to meet the context of a whole neighborhood. The same applies to small projects of about 20 to 30 households.
Only projects on the level of a street, of 50 to 100 households, can be recognized in the decor of the neighborhood. From here the series of levels inside the projects can connect with that part of the series that still exists, the sequence of neighborhood, the quarter, the district, the city etc.

But still there can be a gap: not all projects provide a smooth connection between the individual household and the community as a whole. In major projects the set of levels can be incomplete in two ways. Thus, the halls of the experimental flats in Overvecht, Utrecht, can provide a social context for the individual households, but above this the ‘hallcommunity' there is only a parking lot for the residents of 3 x 4 halls, and the question is whether these facilities can provide a social context. Facilities that can provide a social context for the entire complex of 183 homes are also missing.

On the other hand, we also see major projects that only have facilities for the whole. The social context that can arise here is very large for individual households.
These considerations make understandable that larger projects containing more levels . But now it gets interesting. If we accept this principle, then how can we best materialize it? We can of course base ourselves on the experience like mentioned above, but perhaps there is more to be found.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In a span of control between 5 and 10 , the boss can follow anyone personally
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Literature
When you study literature, It is hard to find something on group size, coupled with a facilities. A few things :
- for businesmeetings the number of 8 people seems to be an optimum, that ensures that all participants come to fruition.
- another number that is mentioned is 30. This is the number of people who can live without written rules.
- then there is the number 120, which represents the number of people we can grasp as acquaintances in our lives.

Span of control
A concept from the world of business organization that might be useful is the so called ' span of control’. This is a number that expresses how many people can be monitored by a supeviser before he/she loses the overview . Research showes different numbers. The maximum can be 5 , but in other studies also the numbers 10 , 15, 50 or even 90 appear. All seems possible. The explanation is that the large numbers occur in companies where production is highly automated , and where employees know what they routinely have to do . The small numbers apply to more customized work, where the employees must be monitored closely.
What can we conclude from all this? Shared facilities seem to correspond with this close monitoring. If we just think away the supervisor, then we may say that you can function in a group of 5, better than in a group of 15 or more. Thus, the number 8 for a group maybe not so bad .

Echelons
In urban planning is also reflected on the size of the different scales. For example Gaston Bardet has called for a series of 'echelons' that scale up with a factor of 5 to 15 up. When we take the average factor, 10, we would see groups of 10 people, streets of 10 groups (100 people), neighborhoods of 10 streets ( 1,000 people ) etc. But perhaps this 'span of control’ of 10 is a bit on the large side.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To the ideas of 'transition towns' and 'ecovillages' we can derive some interesting functional facilities .
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Suitable facilities
The life on the levels of the series stands or falls with suitable facilities. A common kitchen for 18 people is barely functioning . The management of a kitchen requires a smaller group with a stronger organization (a smaller span of control).
For a 'courtyard', a group of 20 to 30 households seems to be too large. Lawn mowing in the common garden, keeping plants , weed pulling , these are serious tasks in a large garden, while the personal involvement decreases with the increase of the number of residents. If you count the groups, the number is less alarming. 20 to 30 households comes down to 5 to 7 or 8 groups. This makes it easy to divides the tasks and let these them occasionally rotate.
Regarding the appropriate facilities for the entire 50 to 100 households: a meeting place and bar, sometimes with facilities for children, hobby , and occasionally a purchasing cooperative and a sall restaurant. These facilities ask for dividing tasks, for opening the bar, coffee mornings , musical and literary evets , general meetings , the project newspaper , contacts with the landlord , or the organization of festivities. Here the subdivision in ‘courts’ can help with the organisation of the different tasks.

Transition towns and ecovillages
The facilities spread across the various levels can distinguish between functional services and facilities aimed at the experience. I have the impression that the latter stand in the foreground. Having meals in the group , sunbathing or barbecuing in the courtyard, visits tot the bar… There are some functional features , but perhaps not always interesting. Like the kitchen sink and the stove, the lawnmower, hoe, broom and washing machine, tap and pantry in the bar.

But if we look at the ideas of ‘transition towns’ and ‘ecovillages’ we can still derive some interesting functional facilities. As a greenhouse and vegetable garden for their own use , a gray water circuit , a constructed wetland for wastewater reuse , a wadi for the reception of rain, conservatories and solar cells.
These facilities can be distributed over the different levels, but we need to ask an important question here: are there enough people in the house to do the work, to maintain the equipment and distribute the products as necessary?

What to do now?
On the basis of the above-mentioned examples we can imagine a series of levels that contains the individual household, the group, the courtyard and the project or street. To form a series it is important to choose the numbers in a way that the levels are attuned to one another. A ‘span of control’ of 4 seems to be favorable here. Now we can consider to build the following series:
1) -individual members of a household share a living room and a kitchen
2) -4 Households who form a 'cluster' or a ‘group’ of about 8 people share a kitchen
3) -4 Groups ( 16 households), about 32 people, form a ‘courtyard’ and share a garden with a bicycle storage, a workshop, and washing machines.
4) -4 Courtyards (64 households), 128 people live in a ‘project’ or street and share a general meeting room and a bar, and possibly workshops and room for childcare.
Perhaps needless to say, but these numbers represent a kind of average , if you look at the practice you see how they can be used flexibly. A larger or smaller project can also work perfectly well. In practice, you can also see that one of the levels may be missed. In projects where household that live in seperate houses that support the level of 'clusters', it can cost a lot of energy to run the life of the household as well as life of the cluster, because these levels have simuar facilities: a kitchen and a living area. In this case it may be wise to integrate the housholds directly in the level of the courtyard.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What we have to remember in all of this: husband and wife are both working during the day, the children are at school or at a childcare centre. During the day there are very few people at home . Domestic life has become a part-time job. We don’t have much time left for sharing common facilities, since we hardly have time to inhabit our own homes.
If we want to derive functional features from ‘transition towns’ and ‘ecovillages’ then we must be sure of the availability of the 'workers' that will be needed to run these features.

2 What we can do together

And with whom

Shared facilities, that is what all forms of cohousing have in common . But with whom do we want to share these facilities?

Social context
As we saw in Part 1, the environment hardly provides any social context in which households , singles or families, can fall into place. At the level of the street social contacts occur only occasional, and the decor of the neighborhood is so big that individual households can hardly be recognized. For a social context, we need a range of social levels, from the household, through a group or cluster , a courtyard, the project and the neighborhood to higher levels. In Part 1 of this series , we have also seen what facilities can play a role here. In this part we look at the nature of social life at different levels of the series.

Variation in household size
A characteristic of the Dutch cohousing association ‘Central Living’ is striving for diversity in the group of residents. Sharing facilities with singles , doubles households and families , households of different sizes, can enrich the lives of each of these households. The adults of these households all have more opportunities for contacts and development in their immediate living environment, and they all can get involved in the growing up of children. On the other hand the children can come into contact with multiple adults, and thus they can evolve more gradual into independend grown ups. An aspect that can be anticipated in the design of a project. Like in the cohousing project in Hilversum , where teenagers can have a private entrance to their room. In the Danish project in Hillerød , " Saettedammen ", many teenagers have a stairway to the balcony of the first floor, where their bedrooms are situated. In the Danish project Tingsgarden (also mentioned in Part 1) there are completely self-contained rooms with a private entrance , which is included in the privacy of the " family group " of 15 households.
For the variation in household you may consider to:
5) -combine houses of different sizes.6) -keep open the possibility a separate entrance for children who are becoming independent.A private entrance for children in the Tingsgarden project in Denmark

Variation in age
The variation of different ages may be an enrichment . It enables older people to enjoy the naivety of children, who in turn, can benefit from the life experience of the older people, which may even apply to their parents. Thus, different stages of life may deepen and enrich each other .

-------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------
Different life stages may enrich each other
-------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------

If you want to invite people of all ages consider to:
7) -combine housing suitable for the elderly and housing for parents with children.

Variation in income and status
From the beginning, the Dutch ‘Central Living’ association has striven to make co-housing accessible to everyone who wishes to live in a collective; not only for those who could afford it, and not just for those with lower incomes . It should be a right for everyone. This might contribute to more understanding between higher and lower income groups, and bridge social inequalities in society.
To provoke a variation in status and income you can consider:
8) -a mix of rental and owner-occupied housing.
(This can lead to a complicated situation at the point of decision making, but these complications are soluble, there are special rental and purchase contracts for development )

Variation in beliefs
Additionally, it may be interesting to vary in terms of beliefs or convictions. Anarchists , Marxists , capitalists , Antroposophists, Darwinists and Christians , Buddhists and Taoists ... the confrontation of different faiths can provide much food for thought .

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The confrontation of different beliefs can provide a lot of food for thought
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To my knowledge this variation is not often sought after. But it exists in one case that I know of, in the housing collective ‘The Carré’ in Delfgauw, where ecology , spirituality , and the pursuit of community florish together. This is an aspect that does not need to be reflected in the design.

Variation in social integration
Living in a collective housing project may have meaning for people who are shut out or who find it difficult to find a connection with society. Social life that comes along with the sharing of facilities may help people with mental health problems , victims of domestic violence, ex - drug addicts or ex-prisoners. They may feel safe in a group and that can help the mto integrate more in society. This is why some groups reserve a space to harbor and support these people temporarily. For the group , this may have a positive effect, because they come into contact with people that they normally don’t get to know.
This goal brings us to the following consideration:
9) - take one or more support units in the design , which are suitable for temporary shelter, units that are the financial responsibility of the group.

How?
How can you combine all these possible variations ? Let's assume a group or cluster of eight adults and a few children. Would it succeed if all the variations listed above where to live together in this group? A thought experiment. Imagine the group consists of two singles, a double and two household families. One single is an alcoholic, the other is a successful pop artist. The two-person household consists of two elderly people , one of them is anxious demented , while the other is struggling with a gambling addiction.

Integrate all in a group

One family consists of a father who is a director working for a multinational, while his wife is a volunteer in a third world shop. One of the children is gifted and not motivated for any education, while the other wants to improve the world and develops as an environmental activist . The other family is deeply religious and wants to support people who cannot find peace and struggle to fit in society. In this group, that is an ex –convict, who temporarily resides in the supportunit. The children of this family are still in elementary school , where they regularly play truant.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Maximum variation in a group , what kind of discussion, we can expect at the breakfast table?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If we aim for a maximum variation within a group , what can we expect here? Will our lives get more and more interesting and rich?

Integration at higher levels
Variation may be a means of enrichment , but it may also be too much. So much that the participants have nothing to say to each other anymore. What is to do now? We also know taht living with like-minded people is much easier.
In larger projects , the integration of the different variations can be realised on social levels above the level of the group. Imagine four groups that share a 'courtyard'. Now we can provide more homogeneous groups. In the first group the focus can be on families and the education of children, in the second one the elderly people may focus on their reflection on the past and in the third group we may find idealistic young people and their commitment to change society, while the fourth group consists of yuppies with their experience of travelling all around the world. As an example.
These four lifestyles have their own qualities and their own rhythm, but they can come together in the 'courtyard' and the elderly can contat the children , the idealists can discuss education with the parents, who can ask the older people for advice and the yuppies can tell about their journeys abroad. These groups only shares a courtyard , a garden with chickens , a playground and a barbecue area with pick-nick table , so the different lifestyles can be absorbed into a larger social structure without disturbing each other.
The same goes for ’courtsyards’ that may be caraterized by the interest in outdoor sports , travel, art, or politics. Different lifestyles that may find shelter in the general lifestyle of the entire project.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Not everything has to be thrown in the group when there are a higher social levels in wich the differences can be bridged
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What I want to illustrate with this example is how different lifestyles can be connected without being intertwined too much. Thus, the advantages of variation can survive the differences. A concept that has been put into practice in the Danish project 'Munksogard' in Roskilde.

Munksogaard in Roskilde. Different lifestyles in different groups, integrated on a higher level.

This is not a panacea for all problems that may arise. Something that deserves special attention is the temporary care for people with different problems. This requires a solid group, motivation and good preparation. Two considerations:
10) - spread variation and integrate different life-styles in higher social levels.11) - be well prepared for temporary shelter.

Choosing new residents
In projects for communal living, the incumbent group chooses new residents. This sometimes leads to negative responses like ’Ah, balloting’. This is true, but also necessary. In the ‘Central Living’ project where I live myself, there once was a group that wanted to avoid this and they sais to newcomers: ‘Anyone who feels at home with us is welcome'.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'Anyone who feels at home with us is welcome'
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Unfortunately, in practice this led to many problems . The conscious choice of residents is not a guarantee against this, but it can reduce the chances that problems arise. And what is against it after all? Isn’t this inherent to living in a house together. People who want to share a house with a partner have procedures that are a lot stricter than the procedures of a group , where candidates are invited for a meal two or three times! Assents are a necessary evil to get an idea of new residents: do they fit in the group and can they give some new input?
Assents make it also possible to search for specific types of households, regarding age , social status, beliefs or any social problems, it is possible to maintain the variation in the composition of the groups.
Considerations:
12) -don’t be afraid of the word ‘balloting’ but try to estimate how new residents will join the existing group and what they could possibly add .13) - see this process as an opportunity to influence the variation of lifestyles in the project.

What we can do together

And how we keep in touch

Shared facilities, which is what all forms of communal living have in common . But how do we go about it ? This is the final part of a series of three articles on issues that may be involved in the sharing of facilities in the atmosphere of living of interest.

Lack of spontaneity
At first sight, it seems that sharing facilities does not have much tot do with the design of a project. As long as they are there! You can just arrange how and when you use them. You can agree on cooking on terms and a sign-up when you join the group. For the use of the bar you can put up posters. And then there's always the computer, or the iPhone, to keep in touch with your neighbours. What is there more to say?
May-be this: in the seventies a living experiment was set up in Hamburg , the so called 'Wohnmodell Steilshoop’. From the outside it looked like an ordinary flat , but the inside was designed for residential groups and communes. All in consultation with the residents. On the ground floor there were a nursery , a gym and recreational spaces and at the rooftop there was a meeting and conference room adjacent to the sunroof.

The nursery on the ground floor Meeting room on the roof

A brilliant experiment, but one thing was overlooked. If you came from outside, and you went home, to your commune, you could see nothing of the common activities on the ground floor, all of which were hidden behind closed doors. To know if there was something going on somewhere, you had to open all doors one by one.

Ground floor of the Wohnmodell in Hamburg . Open all the doors of the inner hallway to see if there is something going on behind . Or take the elevator to the meeting room on the roof.

For the general meeting room, annex bar, residents had to take the elevator up, to see if anyone was there. This setup only worked as everything was agreed on forehand ... casual encounters , the possibility to have a look or to join an activity spontaneously, was totally discouraged by the design. A shortcoming that undoubtedly contributed to the early termination of this interesting experiment.

Stroll
Imagine that you come home and before you go to the elevator you pass the general meeting room, which perhaps has a terrace, children's rooms or the gym area. There you may see someone you know, or you are questioned by someone, and before you know it you've heard a story, your told your own or you subscribed for a meal or an activity. For this mechanism, think of your holidays, when you walk along a variety of cafes and watching where you 'll press down. If you come home or you leave to do errands, the same can happen. Thus, the layout of a project may invite spontaneous encounters. But we must be careful here: when a route passes right between the tables, or through the common rooms, a conversation becomes a must. And you kill the spontaneity that you tried to evoke. Considerations:
14) - care for a disclosure of the property along (and not through ) the public areas .15) - prevent common areas to be located at the end of a journey.

Corridors
Not only in politics but also in everyday life casual contacts in corridors are important. If we look at a neighborhood , we find that people everywhere an opportunity for such conversations ‘by the way’. The line at the checkout , the laundry, the garbage can, people exchange thoughts anywhere, casually, also on all kinds of issues, also about what is happening in the neigbourhood. Thus they form a sort of a 'bottom up' opinion which may come into play one day.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In unexpected places people exchange thoughts and form an opinion 'bottom up'

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This mechnisme can also work in a project with shared facilities. Residents can have a chat next to the washing machines, the mailboxes, or in the garden where all can be discussed. Plans for a playground in the garden , the new decor of the bar , the authorization procedure for new residents , In all sorts of unexpected places people exchange thoughts and form an opinion about what is going on . No agenda , no chairman and no immediate consequences. All casually as they came for something else.

These kind of calls can be encouraged when there is a bench, a wall to sit on near the washing machines, in the vegetable garden, next to the mailboxes , and wherever something is taken care of. What stimulates ’s here is a view of something that can give rise to such a conversation.
Consider to:
16) - provide possibilities tot sit down for a while, next to activities, so residents can exchange ideas casually.17) - if possible, with a view of something that can serve as lead to a conversation

Outsiders
Above two types of contacts are outlined : the more formal contacts when residents are strolling, and the more informal contacts in the corridors where opinions are formed ‘bottom up’. The latter may not be shared by everyone. That seems to be inevitable, but perhaps also beneficial. The tension between what is common and what might be better keep sus alive. But also tensions can build up. Fortunately, there is a third form of contact that can work as a lubricant here: contact with outsiders. They can come up with new perspectives , and thereby , they do not feel inhibited. Because outsiders are not aware of things that are sensitive , they can , express quite a bit like the Jester in earlier times. (As long as they remain polite, though!)
How can we imagine this kind of contact?
Suppose you want to go shopping in a mall in a nearby neighborhood. Here you are used to the fact that neigbourhoods are interconnected. You don’t have to leve your own neighbourhood before you can enter the nearby neigbouhood by a kind of main entrance. How different is this in our homes. Here we cannot use an interconnecting door that gives way to the living room of the neighbours. Here we must go out to the higher level of the street and ring the bell. But how is the situation when it comes to the livingroom of neigbouring groups in a cohousing project?

There are projects in which you can go directly from your own unit to the neigbouring livingroom. Thanks to a continuous inner hallway that connects the residential units with the common rooms of the neighboring groups. As in the living collective of Purmerend, see pictures below.

Ground floor of residential collective of Purmerend. The continuous inner hallway connects all units with all ten group rooms .

One point to consider is how big you want to be the group of outsiders. If all residents of the collective housing project may enter all the group facilities, that might be a bit too much, there is a chance that groups will tend to close up. Maybe outsiders from three or four neighboring groups is enough. This principle can also be applied on higher social levels.
To invite residents to casual contacts it is advised to provide leads to a conversation.
Consider:
18) - connections between a number of group areas, indoors, with a limit to the number of outsiders that have access to these connections.19) - the same principle used at higher levels .
20) - leads to a conversation.

Thresholds
The archetypical American home has a porch. After work you can get some rest here, in a rocking chair with a newspaper and a drink at hand. From here you can view the street and, if desired , you can chat with passersby.

This principle, 'porch life', can also be applied to other levels. Units may have a porch that opens onto the group area. These areas may have their own veranda or terrace, overlooking a communal courtyard . And this courtyard may also be provided with a porch or a threshold that gives a view, this time on the facilities of the street or the project as a whole. Finally, these facilities may have a threshold, a terrace, that offers a view of the life in the neighborhood.

Thus, from the unit you can see what is going on group level, from here you can see what is going on courtyard etc. Conversely, this also works. From the level of the project you can look back at the courtsyards, from here you can look back to the porches of the groups and from here you can keep an eye on the porches of the units. So these thresholds can function as a kind of cement, ensuring consistency inside a project and a connection with the neighborhood .
What helps here again is something that can trigger a conversation can. A barbecue spot, rabbits in the garden, a water pump where children play ...
Consider:
21) - a porch or threshold on different social/spatial levels22) - something that may trigger the conversation

Three kinds of casual contact
We have seen above, three kinds of casual contact , each of which have a different effect and different facilities. Because all this might be a bit confusing after first reading, I will conclude with a short summary.
- for the regular contacts between residents design the acces in a way that it passes the common areas, this for the stroll effect.
- furthermore, think of spots, where resident can, casually, sit down and exchange ideas, and form 'bottom up' opinions.
- third, offer opportunities for contacts with outsiders. Here the acces can be used to connect more group rooms or courts.
To strengthen all forms of contact and to emphasize the coherence of a project can be thought of threshold as a kind of glue between different levels.
Dr Ir Philip (Flip) Krabbendam

The Generic City is the city liberated from the captivity of the centre, from the straitjacket of identity (…). If it gets too small, it expands. If it gets old, it self-destructs and renews (…) it can produce a new identity every Monday morning.

We are no longer alienated and passive spectators but interactive extra’s (figurants interactifs); we are the meek lyophilized members of this huge “reality show”. It is no longer a spectacular logic of alienation, but a special logic of disincarnation; no longer a fantastic logic of diversion, but a corpuscular logic of transfusion and transsubstantiation of all our cells; an enterprise of radical deterrence of the world from the inside, and no longer from the outside (…). Being an extra (figurant) in virtual reality is no longer being an actor or a spectator. It is to be out of the scene (hors-scene), to be obscene.

A research on situational and instrumental qualities in the built environment
In which modernist and postmodernist design is put in an existentialist perspective

by Flip Krabbendam

INTRODUCTION

Evaporating Postmodernism
When we look at the 'experience' oriented postmodernist architecture we can see a problem. Postmodernism tells us that the world we experience consists of images. Images that are more interesting then the good old reality. But, interesting as they may be, when we really try to live with them, these postmodern images tend to loose their meaning, our environment seems to be more and more imaginary and ready to evaporate. Here we enter the world that the French philosopher Jean Baudrillard has called the ‘hyperreality’, a world that will leave us in the end with a feeling of total emptiness.

Back to Modernism?
When we think of the functionalistic modernism that we left behind us, we may feel the urge to go back to it, and forget that here was a problem too. The emphasis on functionality in modernist architecture has led us in the past to a technocratic environment in which we felt reduced to parts of the environment, to the proverbial little wheels in the big machinery. Here we are talking of the problem of depersonalization. Which also could lead to a loss of meaning. So, going back to the Modernist approach doesn’t seem to be the solution.
Where can we go, now both ways lead to a deadlock?

Two basic attitudes
Both architectures have their own problems in then field of the engagement. In this research I have tried to investigate if, and how, we can find a way around the problems. Therefore I have introduced two basic attitudes, in which we can relate to the world: the ‘instrumental’ and the ‘situational’ attitude. When we take on the ‘situational’ attitude, we are receptive and we let the world act on us; when we take on the ‘instrumental’ attitude, we are active and we act on the world ourselves. I’ll try to illustrate the meaning if these two attitudes with the example of the walk in the woods.

Walking in the woods
When we take a ‘situational’ walk in the woods, we are receptive and have an open ear for the birds or the breeze in the trees. And we may smell the flowers and the grass or the fur trees. We may also experience the heat of the sun, and the coolness of the shadow underneath the trees. Thus we undergo a multitude of effects that the surrounding world may have on us.
Imagine now that it starts raining! This usually has a dramatic effect on our attitude: we start acting, in order not to get wet. We unpack our umbrella and put it up. Or we run for a big tree for cover. We are now fully devoted to the ‘instrumental’ attitude.

The two attitudes make a big difference in how we appreciate in the world. In the ‘situational’ attitude we may prefer a curving footpath that allows us to wonder between the bushes and to be surprised by open spaces, unexpected animals or mysterious trunks. And we may even appreciate the fact that we are barefoot on an unpaved footpath.
But as soon as the rain has triggered our ‘instrumental’ attitude we don’t like the curves anymore. What we would appreciate now is a paved road that brings us in a straight line to a warm and dry place. We are no longer interested in wondering around, the mysterious trunks may now cause us to fall, and our bare feet and the unpaved footpath make us struggle even more.

Two attitudes that imply each other
These attitudes work out very differently, but yet they belong to each other.
In our situational attitude we let the world act on us, in our instrumental attitude we act upon the world ourselves. As receptive and active, both attitudes oppose and imply each other. And it is not difficult to see that both attitudes play their role when we develop the world, as we change from one attitude to the other and back.
But we don't think in terms of 'situational' and 'instrumental' attitudes. We are more used to terms like 'experience' and 'functionality'. We can recognize the situational attitude when we focus on 'experience' and we can recognize the instrumental attitude when we focus on 'functionality' but there is a difference.

Emancipation
Postmodernism underlines the experience, and we can read this approach as 'situational'. Modernism was inspired by functionality and we can read this approach as ‘instrumental’. We can see the mutuality of the 'situational' and the 'instrumental' approach now, but we don’t' recognize this mutuality when we use the postmodernist term 'experience’ and modernist term 'functionality'.
There is a history behind this, a history that dates back to Descartes in the seventeenth century. In this history 'functionality' has been connected to 'objectivity and truth’, while 'experience’ has been identified with ‘subjectivity and illusion’. To overcome these connotations we need a closer look at the situational and the instrumental attitude.

Existentialism
To start with the situational attitude: when a human subject is involved in a receptive attitude towards the world, who are we to say that the resulting experience is an illusion? The existentialism of Martin Heidegger can support us here. In this philosophy he states that a free and open minded and receptive attitude towards the world will show us a world that is as true as we are. That means that the world that comes with the situational attitude is not just a postmodern game that will leave us empty in the end, it can be a meaningful reality.
We can also act upon the world as real agents, so the matter of involvement has another, instrumental side. Here we can rely on the existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre’s, in which acting upon the world implies a human subject that is, as a free agent, involved in changing the world.
With the recognition of the necessity of an engaged agent in the instrumental world, we may prevent technocratic depersonalization.

The aim of the research
Now we can realize that there is no ground for a choice between an ‘imaginative’ postmodernist approach, based on experience, that can lead to a postmodernist emptiness and a ‘realistic’ modernist approach, based on functionality, that can lead to technocratic depersonalization.

Postmodernist emptiness

Technocratic depersonalization

When we try to overcome both, 'experience' and ‘functionality’, and focus on the situational and the instrumental attitude, we don’t need to choose between two troubled sides, because then we have
two clear sides from which we don’t have to make a choice.

The situational and the instrumental approach don't exclude each other. We can see them as two approaches that can be put in one perspective because they imply each other.
This concept looks promising and the aim of this research has been to find out if and how this new concept could be made operational in the field of the design of a built environment, that invites us to involvement, instead of inviting us to postmodernist emptiness or modernist depersonalization.

Three basic questions of the research
When we distinguish and value the two basic attitudes that refer to two different appreciations of the world, we can ask ourselves three questions:
1) Which qualities of the built environment can invite us to a situational involvement?
2) Which qualities of the built environment can invite us to an instrumental involvement?
And, as soon as we realize that the two attitudes are implying each other, we can also ask the question what this mutuality will mean for the understanding and design of the build environment.
3) What is the meaning of the mutuality of these two attitudes for the design of the built environment?

Hermeneutic research
If we want to develop a ‘situational-instrumental’ approach of architecture,
we must try to clarify and investigate the meaning of the new concept, and that is why a ‘hermeneutic research’ was appropriate here. The development of a ‘situational-instrumental’ approach also means that the qualities that can invite to one of the two basic attitudes had to be made operational. This will allow us to put these qualities to the test in the real world, ‘to eat the pudding’, for further development.
In the following text I will follow the hermeneutic research and describe some of the most interesting new qualities that came out of it.

THE SITUATIONAL ATTITUDE

Architecture, taste and identification
The situational attitude is characterized by receptiveness. Here we are in the field of Postmodernism and Experience Design, where the main issue is not the functionality, but the experience of the build environment. The fact that we can recognize many schools in Postmodernism demonstrates the multitude of aspects that can be experienced in a situation.
Now we have changed the postmodernist world of illusions, where ‘everything goes’, for a world of situational commitment and truth, we may ask ourselves if we are still in the field of 'anything goes’. There might be a way to make ‘the right choice’ as we look for commitment. To answer this question, we need to look a bit deeper into the nature of the ‘situations’ that belong to the situational attitude.
Imagine that we want a special kind of situation: a swimming pool in the garden. Now we can start digging in the garden and we have a good reason for it. But having a reason is characteristic for the ‘instrumental’ attitude. Reasons last only as long as we are digging. We have no reasons for the result of our digging, the swimming pool! It is just a situation that we like. We cannot argue about this. Forced to think about it, we might come up with a reason, we may say that the swimming pool will serve our health. Now the swimming pool is no longer a situation, but a means to another situation: our health. Now our health has become the situation that we ‘just like’, without a reason.
What we see here is how reasons illustrate that we are involved in the ‘instrumental’ attitude. Reasons chase the situational attitude away. The situational attitude can only lead us to situations that we ‘just like’, without any reason. So we can make a right choice as long as we choose what we 'just like' without any reasoning. The choice for one situation or another is 'a matter of taste' where no reasons are involved.

If ‘a matter of taste’ excludes reasons, we can easily see that there cannot be such a thing as a good or a bad taste. Because, for a good or a bad taste we need reasons and reasons make the situation disappear…
Still many architects have a preference for certain situations, based on the concept of a ‘good taste’. What they don’t see is that the concept of ‘good taste’ is a contradiction in itself.
From the viewpoint of the situational attitude, architecture means arranging the whole constellation of whishes and preferences of users in such a way that they can identify with it, ‘become friends with it’, in the words of Christian Norberg-Schulz.

Associations
In the choice of situational qualities, we will find that associations may play an important role. When qualities have appeared together often, we can associate these qualities to one another, like in the experiment of Pavlov. A ‘climbable’ tree in the wood can make us think the holidays when we were of climbing in trees. Qualities can also appear together by resemblance, and thus evoke associations. A building with a triangular shape on top of the entrance, columns and facades of marble, can evoke associations with Greek temples. With the use of associations we can add extra layers of meaning to the built environment.

Mead/Penhall Residence, New Mexico, by Bart Prince. Associations with the organic shapes of nature and industrial materials.

Orientation
For a proper commitment of the user, orientation is important. Here we can also think of Norberg-Schulz, when he underlines the importance of a balance between ‘earth’ and ‘heaven’. This means that the situation should enable us to identify with a part of it, the ‘earth’, without losing the sight on the whole of it, ‘heaven’. Here we can make use of the sequence of situational levels that we can recognize in the sequence of the house, the street, the neighborhood, the city, etc. This sequence of situational levels can also help us in our orientation to other people who belong to these levels.

Parade
On the lower levels of this succession we can relate to others because we know them. But how can we meet people on the higher levels? From the tradition we have inherited a simple means: the parade. Here we can do two things: show ourselves or look at others. Exchanging looks can be enough. But if we want to, we can also address other people and exchange ideas and experiences.
What we need is a strip to parade on, with watching areas at the sides.

The 'Ramblas' in Barcelona

When we think of a parade, we tend to think of boulevards in big old cities. But we can understand this concept in a broader way. Children in a playground also parade when they want to come into contact with other children. Parading can take place at all different levels of the succession of situational levels, while the participants can be of all ages.

Corridors

The parade stands for a more formal way to relate to other people, but contact between people can also take place in a more informal setting, in the ‘corridors’ of a neighborhood or a city. Here we might think of the Greek stoa’s that went alongside the central agora of ancient Greek city centers. In these ‘corridors’ people could meet in an informal way and comment, ‘bottom up’, on the identity of the city. In this way corridors may contribute to a certain freedom in developing our lives in the neighborhood or the city.

The Stoa of Attalos, Athens, built140 bc.

'Communicating doors'
This sequence of situational levels can have the structure of a tree. But as Christopher Alexander has pointed out: a city is not a tree. If our streets lead only to our own neighborhood centre, then we would only meet people that are involved in our own neighborhood. But we can connect our streets with the streets of other neighborhoods, we can build lateral connections, ‘connection doors’ between neighborhoods that invite people from outside, outsiders, who can comment on our affairs with no strings attached. Outsiders who can open up our perception on life and make it more interesting.

Small scale meeting places
To ease contacts between people that don't know each other, in case of a parade, 'corridors' or communicating doors, we can provide these facilities with small scale meeting places, that allow a view on people that pass by or interesting events. These meeting places are public, so nobody is obliged to contact other people, but other people are within reach because of the small scale. And passers-by or interesting events may evoke remarks and the exchange of ideas.

'Steering'
An interesting aspect of situations is the ‘steering’: this is an instrumental quality that we use to play with a situation and bring it to life. In doing so, the ‘steering’ does not become explicit: we will use it when we are focusing on our situational attitude. Here we can think of light switches, doorknobs, or the heating. Or, when we go outside the house: a scenic driveway.

THE INSTRUMENTAL ATTITUDE

Sequence of instrumental levels: the material side
When we take on the instrumental attitude, we look at a world of instruments. Here elements are not connected by association but by ‘cause and effect’. Here we can see how different parts of an instrument work together, and form a bigger whole. This is what Modernism has been trying to demonstrate in the last century. (Also in the field of situations…)
Instrumental parts that build up to a bigger whole, here we can recognize an sequence of instrumental levels.

Sequence of instrumental levels: the social side
When we adopt the instrumental attitude, we perceive not only a world of instruments, we also see people that act on the machinery, the agents.
As agents we can’t work with ‘everybody’ at the same time. We work with a small and survey-able group. These small groups are geared to one another, as they are united on a higher level. The bigger a company or factory is, the more levels. So, we can recognize a sequence of social instrumental levels here. By making this sequence visible, we can show the agents who handle the material sequence.

Different parts of the ‘Jerry Lind’ (built in 1847) form a sequence of instrumental levels.
The wheels and the metal frame form the undercarriage, the steam boiler, and the funnel form the steam engine, while the undercarriage and the steam engine form the locomotive.

Situational colouring
As we have seen, we use implicit instruments in our situations. When we think of an instrument, we can look for implicit situational elements that can play a role in the use of the instrument. And we can find them! For example: we can see that the tower of Tatlin was designed as an instrument, but when we look at this tower from a situational point of view, we may discover a story of danger and adventure. This is a ‘situational colouring’ that we can perceive implicitly when we look at the design with the supposed instrumental look.

Danger and adventure as ‘situational colouring’ .

Instruments that were designed by Modernist architects show a different colouring. No more adventure and heroism here. What we see are abstractions that indicate that the instrumental attitude is now linked to science and objectivity. As a designer we can play with this situational colouring to underline the meaning and the kind of use of the instrument.

'Handles'
Another implicit reference to the situational attitude is given in the handling of an instrument. Here we always need something like a 'handle'. This is an implicit situational aspect of the instrument. The situational qualities of handles become visible when they are designed badly, when the handle start to hurt us and disturb the instrumental attitude.
In the case of the Jerry Lind (see above) we can recognize the railing for the engine driver as the ‘handle’ of this instrument.
When we talk about 'handles' we are talking about ergonomics. In the design of furniture, tools or machines, these implicit situational elements are widely accepted. But in modernist architecture they don’t show as situational elements.

MUTUALITY

Facilities for the interplay
We have seen instrumental qualities in the situational domain, and situational qualities in the instrumental domain. In these situation one of our attitudes is explicit, the other is implicit.
When we link a kitchen tot a living room, we have a constellation in which both attitudes can be explicit. The link between the two domains enables inhabitants or users from the situational domain to come into contact with producers from the instrumental domain, to discuss what will be produced. And after the factual production, these links can also be used by the producers to hand over the products to the users. An action that transforms the product into a ‘consumpt’.
What we see here is how the link and the interaction between the two domains can lead to the development of the situation. In order to be able to produce new situations, instruments will have to develop as well. This means that the interaction between the two attitudes, that is based on their mutuality, leads to an interplay in which both, situations and instruments, are developed. And this goes hand in hand with the development of the situational and the instrumental attitude!
I will refer to the links, where the mutuality and the interplay of the two attitudes becomes clear, as ‘facilities for the interplay between users and producers’.

Connected facilities for the interplay
Levels of the sequence of situational levels can directly be linked to an instrument of their own. Like the kitchen and the dining room. Or the kitchen in a restaurant that is linked to the dining area. The facility that links the two domains can takes the shape of a simple counter where drinks or food can be ordered and handed out.

Semi-connected facilities
When we think of a bakery, we can see that this instrument is connected tot the back of the shop. The front of the shop has lost contact with the situational level that the instrument is producing for. In other words: the interplay is only connected on one side, it is semi-connected.

Free floating facilities
The production can be centralized more by lifting the instruments to a higher situational level. Now we can take advantage of the development of our technology and have products of a higher quality at a lower price. This higher level might be a national or even a super national level. The facilities for the interplay normally stay within reach of the consumer, in the neighborhood or in the city centre, somewhere between the low situational level of the consumers and the high situational levels where the instruments have been lifted to. Now both sides of the facility are disconnected. What we see here is a ‘free floating facility’.
The disconnection can cause communication problems. Consultations between consumers and producers tend to disappear. Only to be replaced by the one directional communication of advertising.
This can be a threat to the mutuality between the situational and the instrumental attitude. Designers can not change the way producers treat consumers, but what they can do is propose and design facilities for the interplay in a way that the actual interplay between consumers and producers can still take place.

Facilities footloose and network urbanism
In the examples as described above, the facilities for the interplay were situated somewhere between the lower level of the consumers, normally the household, and the higher level where the production takes place, the country or even a higher level. What we see now is that these facilities for the interplay can start moving around and land in the middle of nowhere, like the malls that have landed somewhere along the motorway.
These malls are no longer connected to a situational level. They seem to be footloose. Consumers that visit such facilities are diverted from the situational levels where facilities used to be, neighborhood- or city centers. This can be a threat to the public life of these situational levels. Especially when the facilities that are footloose, compete with local facilities. Now we are not only confronted with a loss of service on a local scale, there is also a loss of public life: neighborhoods and city centers depopulate, which is a threat to the sequence of situational levels that supports the possibilities for our identification and orientation.
The loss of neighborhood- and city-centers can also mean the loss of historical environments. When this occurs, we may loose our orientation in time, which might cause problems when we want to relate our lives to a historical context.
That is why network urbanism can be a threat: with the loss of old neighborhood- and city-centers we lose our qualities for identification and orientation as well as our qualities for orientation in time, qualities that cannot be replaced by the facilities for the interplay, situational facilities and instruments that will appear along motorways.

Centre without a city
Facilities for the interplay that are footloose can sometimes be brought back to local, or city centers. But many of these facilities have a service area that is too big for the situational level of a neighborhood or a city. To prevent these ‘super-urban’ facilities from wandering around and being footloose, we can think of the formation of higher situational levels, on the level of a county or even the county, where wandering facilities for the interplay can be connected to the sequence of situational levels and find a home. These levels can also host instruments like offices, or other enterprises that have a super-urban service area.
Super-urban levels may look like city-centers, but there will be a difference: these centers are not surrounded by residential areas! Super-urban centers are ‘centers without a city’.
May be the service areas that appear along motorways nowadays, can be seen as a first step towards the formation of centers without a city.

The western town as a ‘centre without a city’ avant la lettre. There is a saloon, a hotel with a dining room, a hair cutter, a dance hall, grocery store, al kinds of facilities that form the centre, but there is not even a small neighbourhood.

Connection
The mutuality between the situational and the instrumental attitude can be shown in the design and the location of the facilities for the interplay, but this mutuality can also appear in the visible connection between instrumental and the situational domains. In architecture this is unprecedented, but in industrial design we can find examples, like the scooter, where you can see how instrumental elements, like the engine and the suspension are connected with the situational side of the scooter, the seats and the body that prevents the driver from getting wet feet and oily clothes. The engine and the body are not only connected because they are parts of the same whole, they are also connected because the size of the suspension and the strength of the engine are in tune with the comfortable, not speedy or adventures, drive, that is promised by the shape of the seat and the body.

In the built environment situation and instrument are not always connected in a way that they are part of the same whole. May-be this is the case by a kitchen in a house or a restaurant, but most of the time the instrument appears to be apart from the situation that it is producing for. Here the sequence of situational levels may help us, because when we place an instrument on a certain level, we can understand that it is producing for the levels below the level where the instrument is placed. To show the connection between instruments that produce on a ‘super urban’ scale, we may need extensions of the sequence of situational levels, ‘centers without a city’, to give these instruments a visible place above the situational levels that they are producing for.

CONCLUSION

Eating the pudding
In this hermeneutic research a variety of architectural theories and practices has been reviewed in order to define the qualities that can be the basis of a ‘situational-instrumental’ approach. If we want to value these qualities we must put them to the test.
In the first place the theory has to be tested by architects: is it useful, can the considerations and recommendations of the ‘situational-instrumental’ approach be integrated in the design practice?
After this first testing, the real empirical testing can begin: when a design is realized, do the built in qualities do their work. Do they really invite inhabitants and users to involvement with the built environment and with each other? And do they really facilitate the mutuality of the situational and the instrumental attitude?

Accessibility
It may be a problem that this research and the ‘situational-instrumental- approach’ are based on a philosophy that is not always accessible. The concepts of Heidegger and Sartre can be difficult to understand, or to accept.
Furthermore these two thinkers sometimes had questionable political viewpoints.
For those who have committed themselves to modernist or scientific attitude, it can be hard to accept the critics on functionalism. The same goes for those who have adopted a postmodern way of thinking.
In spite the problems with the accessibility, I choose for the existentialism as a philosophy that is explicitly concerned about involvement.

A new role for the designer?
The qualities that come out of the research don’t point in the direction of a certain way of designing. But the fact that the taste of users and resident will be at the basis of the design, can make a difference. Not for those who are used to work with residents or users, they may enjoy the interaction, in which they develop qualities that these residents or users want to be friends with. Designers who see the interaction with users and residents as a threat to the ‘good taste’ that they represent, might be worried.

A new architecture?
The qualities that come out of the research are described in such an abstract way that much room for interpretation is left. So these qualities are independent, and not connected with a special kind of architecture. But this doesn’t mean that any existing architecture can be used without a problem!
When we think of the two domains, we can see that the reach of the good old modernist approach is too short, it only serves one domain.
The same goes for postmodern approaches: here we miss the ‘language’ for instrumental qualities.
So we can see that a ‘situational-instrumental approach’ invites us to invent a new kind of architecture and a new kind of urbanism.

Final conclusion
This research shows that the situational and the instrumental attitude can be the starting point of an adventure that gives us new qualities for the interpretation and for the design of the built environment. Qualities that can help us overcome modernist depersonalization and postmodern emptiness.
But the formulation of these qualities is only a first step. We need to investigate if these qualities can be realized in our design practice. The next step will be the investigation of users and inhabitants: do these new qualities invite to more involvement, also in their eyes?
We still don’t know what the results of this research will mean for users and inhabitants, but we can imagine what the meaning will be for architects and planners. Those who see the influence of users and residents as a threat to ‘good taste’ may be worried, but others may be inspired as they see how the qualities that follow from this research can be the start of a journey that will lead to the discovery of new qualities and new ways in practicing architecture and urban planning.

This text is a summary of the Ph D thesis that I developed under the supervision of professor Rosemann (on the Faculty of Architecture of Delft).
For the full version see: 'http://repository.tudelft.nl' under the name 'Krabbendam'.

Het idee van de netwerkstad wordt ook verdedigd door Rem Koolhaas. Hij spreekt hier van de ‘Generic City’ omdat het ontstaan van voorzieningen in de netwerkstad een dynamisch proces is: de snelwegen van de netwerkstad zullen steeds nieuwe voorzieningen, woonwijken en ook gebeurtenissen genereren, die tijdelijk oplichten om daarna weer uit te doven.The urban plane now only accommodates necessary movement, fundamentally the car; highways are a superior version of boulevards and plazas, taking more and more space; their design, seemingly aiming for automotive efficiency, is in fact surprisingly sensual, a utilitarian pretence entering the domain of smooth space. What is new about this locomotive public realm is that it cannot be measured in dimensions. The same (let’s say ten-mile) stretch yields a vast number of utterly different experiences: it can last five minutes or forty, it can be shared with almost nobody, or with an entire population; it can yield the absolute pleasure of pure, unadulterated speed - at which point the sensation of the Generic City may even become intense or at least acquire density – or utterly claustrophobic moments of stoppage – at which point the thinness of the Generic City is at its most noticeable.

One remarkably independant woman, who did not seem to correspond to the stereotype in any way, confessed to me that she always "tidied herself up" to pop down to the grocery store "just in case a tourist took a picture" of her. She wanted to "represent Celebration in a good light."(Ross, Andrew, 'The Celebration Cronicles', New York, Ballantine Books, 1999, pp 301)
Celebration, ontwikkeld door de Disney Company.

Celebration's inside humorwas often Trumanesque. Residents were all too aware of the outside perception of them as controlled actors in a movie set, and they had their own way of processing and putting to use this stereotype. One example was another punlike saying that I occasionally heard around town: "Celebration's Over." Depending on the speaker and the context, it had at least two meanings. The phrase could be used, for example, as a sympathetic comment about some mishap that had changed a resident's perception of the town. In other words, the good life in Celebration had simply been an elaborately staged illusion, and now the show had ended (…)Alternately, "Celebration's over" could be used to urge others to act in a mature fashion. In other words, the onset of daily problems had dispelled the hoopla surrounding the town and it was time to get real.(Ross, Andrew, 'The Celebration Cronicles', New York, Ballantine Books, 1999, pp 303)

THE COOK,THE PUDDINGAND THE SEASONS
(This is a slightly modified version of the paper for the 'Research by design' conference on the faculty of Architecture of the Technical University of Delft in 2000; see the conference book 'PROCEEDINGS B')

Flip Krabbendam

The proof of the pudding
Aristotle wrote in the fourth century bc that heavy objects would speed up more when falling than light objects. He never tried it, and nobody did, until 2000 years later, around the year 1600, Simon Stevin came to the idea to see for himself if Aristotle was right. And to his surprise he saw that Aristoteles was wrong. 1)
Today we are used to provide proof when we state something. We found out that it is very fruitfull to confront statement and proof; experiments make our understanding of the world around us develop.
Not only in science, but also in daily life we are used to connect statement and proof. We even have a saying for it: the proof of the pudding is in the eating. This saying is very common, so you can expect that any statement is accompanied with proof. You can expect it, but still you don’t always get it. In architecture, and not only in architecture, but that is what we are looking at here, in architecture you find many statements that are only supported by the status of the speaker. Or by his anger.
An architect who builds in loam once told me that loam staightens out the temperature during the season. In winter it makes the house warmer and in summer it makes the house cooler. And the same goes for humidity: in a wet winter the house gets dryer, in a dry summer the house gets more humid. How? Because loam is a natural material, and nature always seeks the equilibrium, that’s how.
And how about the proof? Did he measure the temperature and the humidity in a house made of loam, in summer and winter, and did he compare his findings with temperatures and humidity in other houses? A very simple experiment, but he had not heard of it. And he wasn’t interested in it. He talked about the pudding and he knew that it tasted good without tasting it. Instead of a proof he extended the theory: natural things are ok, and since a loampudding is natural it has to be ok.
Le Corbusier, by the time that he was trying to be straight and scientific, before the war, stated that: ‘the curved line paralyses everything’. 2) Do you see it before your eyes? A curved road on your left hand with all kinds of lazy people hanging around the bend, yawning and half asleep? While on your right hand you see a straight road, full of people who vividly walk to work, in straight lines, while little children feed the ducks very accurately in the straight canal that you can see in the distance?

Architects and research
Most architects do have outspoken ideas about how a design should be made. But they are not used to discuss these ideas. They tend to act like The Ones Who Know. And when they are confronted with each other, a strange communication takes place. They all Know, but they usually don’t agree. They are like impressive old masters who like followers more than questions. A theory that can be questioned, that is designed to be questioned, is not a common thing.

Another reason that architectural ideas are rarely tested may be that users don’t speak up very much. They try to make the best of their homes and if they can, they vote with their feet. But voting with your feet is not the same as a real democratic vote where you influence the decision making ; it is rather a primitive and even coward way to show your content or discontent!

When users are not speaking up, how do architects know if they did the right thing? They often Know, but sometimes you can find them taking a walk in a neighbourhood that they have designed and there they may be surprised by the taste of the real pudding. They may even be more surprised by the ingredients that users have added to make it taste better. Architects can learn from these things, but they can also blame the users who don’t understand architecture. We are not very near ‘research’ here.
Who else is tasting the pudding? Architectural journalists? These connaisseurs only smell the pudding, and their taste can be totally irrelevant. In spite of this they are taken most seriously, because they can help to build the image and the career of the architect.
So there is design, but can there be research, when users don’t speak up, when architects only have a look when they feel like it and when journalists, as outsiders only smell the pudding?

Dream houses
Real estate developers claim that they do better. Depending on the appreciation of buyers, they are very concerned with the needs and taste of the latter.
So it seems logical that they know what the user needs. But do they? Do they have a theory about architecture? And if so, how do they test it? What kind of research is done here?
The research by the real estate developer is mainly research by the cashbook. And just as voting with your feet is no real democracy, research by the cashbook is no real research.
But may be it is not that bad. As good salesmen, real estate developers have a special feel for the wishes of the client.
In some branches they go very far. Car factories used to produce dream cars and they investigated potential users about their findings. Chrysler once made a dream car with a turbine-engine and 50 of these cars were handed out for free, to 50 users who were asked to give their opinion after one year. This was in 1963. 3) Real estate developers may not know this, but may be it can inspire them to do a similar thing with dream houses where people can live for free in exchange for their opinion about different aspects of the houses (or the street).

Architects normally don’t like such experiments. When you serve the public too much, good taste will suffer. People will choose what they know and that will be the end of the challenge to invent new architecture. So when there is research, can there be design? Architects tend to see this kind of research as dangerous. The end of architecture seems to be near!

Seasons
Architects seem to believe that design and research exclude each other… but we don’t have to agree with them. I think we can make a connection between research and design in four steps. First we make a design. Secondly we build it. This enables the third step: people, users, can live in it. And then we can come to the fourth step: investigation of the users.
The findings can be used in the next design.
Here we can use the metaphor of the seasons, where each season has a meaning of its own.
Spring is the season in which new things are started, the design.
Summer is the season in which things develop, the construction.
In autumn we reap the fruits, the use.
And in winter we evaluate our findings, which enables us to make a new start in spring.
So we have four distinctive moments together in a cycle. This cycle where design and research are connected, is in fact a spiral in which design and research can develop in time, thanks to the connection of both.
In the picture below I have tried to put the players that we meet in the field of architecture in the right segments, in the right seasons.

The architect is situated in spring, where new plans are developed. The contractor is situated in the summer; where the new plans are realised. The real estate developer covers two seasons here: spring and summer.
The user is situated in the autumn, where he can harvest the fruits that grew in summer.
Now we can realise that there is a empty season; who is taking care of the winter, when the fruits, the things that we use, are evaluated?
We do have sociologists. They can help to evaluate the findings of the user. It is often done, but their work only partly helps the architect. Why?
In the first place sociologists are interested in interactions between people, and the environment is more regarded as a precondition, and not as a subject of investigation.
Secondly, as I stated before: architects usually don’t have architectural theories that can be tested. So sociologists lack the instruments to test the architecture, to see if it has achieved its goals.

User commercials
The role of the user or the consumer doesn’t seem to be very important. Producers play the main role. They appear everywhere around us, on billboards, in TV programs and in magazines where they tell consumers what their needs are. When you are at home in the evening and you watch TV, about 20 or 30% of the time that you watch, is taken by producers who try to convince you that you need their products. We are like wives who’s old-fashioned husbands are telling them what to be and what to want.
We are so used to this that it is hard to imagine the opposite: imagine that you are at work at the office, with your computer and you are interrupted, 15 or 20 minutes each hour, when your screen is taken over by big consumer organisations who bombard you with user commercials, in order to influence the production work that is done in multinationals and in national and local enterprises all over the country.

Fukuyama may say that history has come to an end, but I would say that our society is severely out of balance. 4) We think of a car or a house or a milk bottle as a ‘product’. Not only as producers but also as consumers. Why is it that consumers have no word of their own. From their point of view they might speak of a ‘consumpt’ instead of a ‘product’.

The future seems to be no longer survival-oriented, where functionality and production is most important. The change has already been made: our society has become experience-oriented. Here the user is vital. So if we want to tune in right, we should give attention to the consumer a place in the circle and we should research what he or she has to say.

Birthday presents and the question about to be asked
Some architects will feel uncomfortable in this setting. They will use the same argument as they use against real estate developers. When you have to obey to the consumer, how can you make a good design.
If you want to give a birthday present to someone, you don’t have to give what he or she asks for, if you think that that is boring. But is that a reason to decide that you will use your own taste as a basis, that you will give something that you only like yourself? Wouldn’t that be ignorant? If you find it boring to give what is asked for, you may try to provide a discovery. You may try to make the receiver say: ‘What a surprise, that’s just what I needed, and I didn’t even realise it’.
The same goes for architects. As an architect you can also challenge yourself to come up with a surprise, to come up with the answer to the question that was about to be asked.

University
When the designing process is linked to the user, it doesn’t mean that architects will have to deal with only the user; there is also a researcher appearing on the scene. A researcher who will ask the architect about his design theory. Because this will enable the researcher to ask the right questions to the user and to present relevant conclusions to the architect.
But since architects are not used to theories that can be tested and discussed, they may be afraid that the design will be limited by the theory. Architects may feel for the idea of surprising the user, the idea of answering the question about to be asked, but how can they do so when they are caught in a theory?
There are different ways to handle a theory. When you identify yourself with a theory, then you see bars all over the place. But you can have a more brave attitude towards theory and use it merely as a tool, as a reference. Then all the bars of the prison may appear to be horizontal bars… and the theory invites you to make new discoveries. And that is how architecture may develop.
Compare this to the situation that we know now, where ideas are not connected to research and where trends are more likely to appear than developments.

For the development of design- and research theories I can imagine the university to play an important role.
Design theories can work as a back-up, not only for students but also for practicing architects.
And when such -testable- theories are available then the communication between users and architects can also be realised. There is a whole field of science that can be developed and discovered here. We all have an idea about what architects do to make a design and how they inform users about the special qualities of their design. But what can users do, what methods can they use to make up their own minds and how can they inform architects about it?

My own research
My own research is based on this idea that we need a design theory that can be tested and renewed in the 'cycle of
seasons' as I described above. A design theory that can fit in this 'cycle of seasons'. So this cycle is the basis
of my research. What we can see here is that this cicle can clarify the distinction between two essential attitudes. The right half of the cycle is the domain of the consumer. Here, in autumn and winter we find the typical attitude of the consumer; the attitude that can be described as an attitude of ‘awareness and alertness’.
The left half of the cycle is the domain of the producer. In spring and summer we find the typical producers attitude of ‘acting and achieving’.
I will give an example: when you take a walk in the park, you can adopt the consumer attitude of ‘awareness and alertness’ in which you undergo the smell of grass, the sound of leaves, the heat of the sunburned path and the coolness of the shadow. Then it starts raining. Now you change to the producer attitude of ‘acting and achieving’. You start looking for the folding umbrella in your bag. You unfold it. And put it in the right position. Then you can go back to your consumer attitude, to ‘awareness and alertness’ again, where you smell the rain and you hear the drops falling on the umbrella.
In the two attitudes you have seen two different faces of the world. And each face of the world may ask for a different kind of design... My research question is: how does the distinction between the attitude of the producer (acting and achieving) and the attitude of the consumer (awareness and alertness) effect the way we design the environment? We can imagine an area of ‘awareness and alertness’ on one hand , and an area of ‘acting and achieving’ on the other hand. What would these areas look like? And which one do you need where? And as we have two areas now, how can we relate the two to each other?

ABUSEMENT INDUSTRY

Our society is constantly changing, in the old days we had to struggle for life in what we can call a ‘survival economy’. Nowadays, we don’t struggle anymore, we have entered another stage of history, another era: we can enjoy life in what is called the ‘experience economy’. A golden era: now we can experience life, we are amazed of the richness and wonders that life can offer us. Aren’t we lucky bastards?

Experience design

We are even more lucky than we think: a whole industry is producing experiences for us. A new breed of engineers has emerged, the imagineers. They took up the challenge to design experiences for us. So if we are ready for the new era, they are ready to serve us. We don’t have to get tired here, like in the old days, in the old economy. We can just relax and enjoy what the imagineers have cooked for us.
Let the sun rise now and turn night into day (Forum shops Las Vegas)

We can go to any mall and let it happen. We will be entertained like never before. Shops will be styled like amusing classic Roman or Oriental shops, there will be funny clowns and may be we can even meet our favorite comic book heroes. Loudspeakers play reassuring music and if needed, a soft voiceover will tell us when we are amazed, excited or even astounded.
And thinking of shopping: we won’t have to worry anymore about how to decide what to buy. The whole atmosphere in the mall will be relaxed and we will be in the right mood to decide. We won’t even notice that we do our deciding job. In the mall we are brought in such a mood that we decide without thinking, think of that!

Why cannot we have all that at home? Well, there is good news. The amusement industry has started to develop neighborhoods too. Friendly communities like in the old days, where everybody will be happy like grandfathers and grandmothers in soup commercials.
Who can imagine that anybody would ever want something else?

I think I can.
That we have discovered the experience is a good thing. What use would it be to work all our lives without ever being able to experience and enjoy the results of our labor!
Production is not the only important thing, as we thought in the survival economy. Consumption and production imply each other. Here lies a chance for a basic change. A challenge! How can we connect our wishes and needs for experiences with our abilities to produce goods and services?
How can we establish a dialogue between consumption and production in which both sides take each other seriously?

But until now this challenge doesn’t seem to bother us very much. Experience has become important, but in what way? Do we really get a chance to experience? A chance to experience things our own way.
Imagine you are walking in a forest and someone pops up from behind a tree, and starts telling you what to experience. Wouldn’t you feel like well… getting rid of this person after a few minutes? If you don’t feel like it then, you will probably feel like it when you leave the forest and he charges you a fee. For helping you to experience the wood the best way you can.
Experience needs something that philosopher Heidegger called ‘Seinlassen’. We need an attitude of ‘letting things be’, of receptiveness. Therefore we need to be left alone for a while. What we don’t need is someone who is telling us what to experience. That may look easy at first sight, but it doesn’t work. The experience will not be ours.

Theme park
And it is even worse. When we walk in the forest, our companion not only tells us what to experience, he also has put several gadgets in the scenery, designed to amuse us. Plastic bears that grown at us from behind trees or realistic models of alligators that open and close their mouth in ponds. And if we take a close look at the trees they appear to be artificial too.
‘This is what you really want, this is especially designed for you, much better than reality’ proclaims our companion excited, and he continues: ‘And we won’t stop here. We have great plans for the new millennium: we will change the whole wide world into an amusement park, all for your amusement’.
But may-be we are not amused, and may be now we take a close look at him. And may be we find that he is a model too. He looks real, but have a good look, he must be a model. The imagineers have done a swell job. Now we can switch this fellow off without violating the law.
Then we flee from the park, hoping to find a part of the world without clowns and artificial scenery that is designed to amuse us.
Let wonders begin - At your command (Forum shops Las Vegas)

You hire the bike that has been stolen from you

If you let yourself persuade to be amused this way, you may end up feeling like a demented senior citizen on a bus trip… look left, look right, be amazed, be excited, be hungry, be sleepy…
And when the bus trip is over, you may feel empty. And if it was a long bus trip, you may have forgotten how to bring your own experience to life, you may have forgotten how the real world looks like and you start looking for the next trip, the next set of experiences.
But these experiences aren’t really yours. In the first place there is the prompter who tells you how to experience the world that is presented to you and secondly this presented world is a mock-up, designed to be better and to replace the real world.
You are experiencing an artificial world in an artificial way. Your abilities to have a real experience may vanish. What you get in return are artificial implants.
Or, to use another metaphor, the amusement industry has stolen your bike and rents it to you now.
Of course the amusement industry will say that they do it all for us. And that we don’t have to make use of their services. But at the same time they try to persuade us to do so, every moment of the day, in every corner of our environment. And when we are dizzy of their abusement, or ignorant, or just lazy, we will end up needing them and believing in them...

Zynisches Weitermachen

Can we really say then that we have arrived in an new era, in the era of the experience? The experience economy gives us a hard time when it comes to real experiences.
And then there is another thing: behind the scene of the experience economy, the good old survival economy still is there. Following its good old principles. Trying to maximize production and profit. Experience is their new product and it seems that this product can be pretty addictive. And what do you need more when you think of maximizing production and profit! So the old economy can go on for a while. A case of ‘zynisches Weitermachen’, in the words of the German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk.
Cynical continuation of the old economy behind the scene, made possible by and implanted artificial experiences on the scene.

Experience in his first job

So we still face the challenge. The new era hasn’t really begun yet. Experience has arrived, but as a teenager in his first job, as a servant of the old survival economy. When we want to connect our wishes and needs for experiences with the production of goods and services, when we want a serious dialogue between consumption and production, this servant has to grow up… How can we make that happen?